Gadgetory

November 29th its episodes 324 of the 359 podcast I'm BVG in your host today are alfred Inge and Roger Chang good morning guys what up we have a jam-packed show and we have a little time to waste an tact yeah we're gonna be talking about snapchats new design personalized design whether or not it's actually gonna win people over I wouldn't talk about a big big vulnerability in High Sierra Apple's latest Mac OS and lastly what we're gonna geek out about the Avengers infinity war trailer gotta have to gotta do it gotta watch it if you have it Brian hasn't seen it so we're probably know from great spoilers there are a lot of Avengers there so they avenge something I think there's there's lots of avenging going on yes so without further ado if you have any comments that if you have questions live in the comments section Brian we'll get to the best and we'll try to answer them in three minutes to 59 seconds hang out we'll see you in three minutes 59 seconds from 3d to welcome to the 359 I'm dr. Chang I'm Alfred Aang snapchat veiled its redesigned promising a more personalized experience that broke up these social and media aspects of the service by adding a friends section for your social circles and updating its discovery discoverer section for the media part you know it seems like this is a bit of a band-aid I mean that they promised a big redesign what do you think I mean I don't think it's a band-aid I think it's a it was a big problem for people who were trying to jump on snapchat and I think their biggest issue was growth right thing as many users as they could and I think a big barrier for that was a lot of people just don't get how snapchat works and they don't get their lay out or anything like that I think I don't know if this these changes are really gonna make things a lot easier for people to jump into it I mean that they're still starting when you launch the app it still starts with a camera which is a bit disorienting for new users they say there's going to be a more explicit French section and more explicit yeah cover section I don't know if that's gonna be enough though I think it will I think the core of snapchat you know why got so popular to begin with was people wanted to share stuff with their friends and all this discover stuff kind of crept in it was I hated it I thought it was really annoying but the problem here is that it feels like for existing snapchat users this might be a better experience but it isn't enough to get people who are you who haven't really heard about snapchat or just trying to figure out what snapchat is is he let make it easier for them that not so much I don't think it will I think that it's they're changing things for their like menu interface but not so much on you know how to use the app or anything like that yeah they also talked about for 2018 the goal is to make the discover platform easier for partners to share the content as well as make money so to try to get more partners to jump on to it but again I don't know if that really just is the core problem of attracting new users who are familiar with snapchat all right next up Apple had a pretty big voter ability come up with the latest Mac OS hi Sierra Alfred the details so this isn't even a technical like vulnerability if you went to your login and you just typed in root as the username and just kept pressing you know enter without a password you were given system admin access to the accounts from there you could change all the passwords on keychain you could access file vault you could change the passwords for the other accounts so you could log in on that as well Apple put out a statement yesterday basically saying yeah we're working on this and we're working on a patch for this so definitely update your laptops if you have Mac OS hi Sierra there is a fix though right you could basically set a password for yeah one of the some of the workarounds that they've had the simplest one is just setting a password for the root account which it doesn't have currently by default by Commission you could also make a root username and then make it a password for that which really cool it no yeah it's just one of those things that really should have been there by default and it's such a glaring error on Apple's behalf it's ridiculous that it took this long to for them to even find out I need to update my Tector keys again alright lastly did you see the Avengers infinity war trailer yeah that's pretty much what I did all morning instead of working good to hear as your boss yeah let's let's kick out over there I mean so many different characters so many different combinations of characters I think that's what excites me most about this that the fact that you know you get these existing franchises you just kind of mash all up you're getting different interactions like a falcon and black panther it's really cool to finally see it all coming together you know I like from the first Iron Man movie we're in the after the trailers I'm not so after the credits when my standing out Jackson shows up and stuff and then you know for all that to lead up to this it's weird it's weird that this is only like six months away I know I know I just it was uh it was kind of surreal that yeah that like this has been a combination of making I do it well note though I I didn't have a chance to watch the comic on the footage at Comic Con and it is different they actually showed a lot more on terms of the battle between betas and the Avengers this was clearly kicking their butts this kind of hits out of the trailer but it's yeah it's I'm excited I'm super super stoked for this alright for more of these stories check us out and seen it I'm Roger Chang I'm Alfred a thanks for listening holy crab apple yeah yeah hey we're talking like another dumb holy crab apples I think the entire time I was writing this story if I just had to take several pauses like this is so dumb this is the dumbest I mean like you too can feel like a hacker by pressing enter four times it's one of those situations where it's like you don't need any skill what is it so if you're just to clear things up if your back is locked can you still pull off you just hit root no cuz you have to change the account right like out but if it's locked I can like log out of that oh and log back in as rooms dad yeah which is just spat yep and then from there I can change the password to your account so then I can get in on that and then yeah that's it's all kinds of terrible it's almost impressively bad right like I'm I'm kind of in awe of how bad that is that is like bush-league junior programming 101 flaw yeah that's why every time I think about it this is so stupid it's it's clearly something that they like didn't anticipate or like just like just didn't look into or anything like that but dumb is the how how many people lose their I do wonder if this is if this is an omission or if this is one of those things were like they change the line of code here and it changed the mechanics of the line of code yeah I mean that's usually how bugs work out every Apple has been kind of it's obviously or I mean I I doubt they would yes henshin Lane intentionally or like or even have a oversight it could have been one of those things were like they changed around something with user interface and that just saying like it it may not be it's stupid yep but it may not necessarily be like just the case of oversight yeah so a big reason why this is such an issue is like like we've talked about so many like vulnerabilities over the last year where like something like like crack yeah where you know everyone says oh all these devices are affected by but then you can kind of settle down for a bit after after realizing like the technical capabilities that you need to be able to do something like that anyway yeah this one is not that like we all did it on like our like lab computer like yesterday and we just ridiculous how easy it was I know before we go full-on geek since I'm still in the dark about the Avengers trailer let's floor a couple questions Matthew - are the - in the chat first of all 2017 the year of the breach nice piece but it's a terrible subject he wants to deviate back to a topic from a couple of days ago and he's discussing the phone cameras again is there really enough of a difference between the cameras to get someone to change ecosystems that's a great question I don't think so I mean I think cameras are very important to the purchasing decision but if you're locked into one ecosystem like especially this year they're very comparable and you know there are specific needs or specific cases where one is better than the other but overall they're they're not neither are terrible I think I think there were such a large gap in the past that like you can make that argument like I switch to an iPhone like phone 2012 yeah and I switched to it in like 2012 or so and then now though like if I had to pick it just like all these cameras are actually pretty damn good so I might it doesn't really make that much of a difference and plus I've both ecosystem so doesn't really yeah it's interesting to me that that's become such a high selling point for any you can't bone is that the camera is like top to your thing and that's a very I know I sound like an idiot for even thinking about that but in a million years maybe like let's say 15 years ago did you really think you're gonna have such a high powered camera in your pocket no I mean that any instance that used to be a major selling point for for like what you want to buy like how good is the camera but now like when all the cameras are essentially like the same I'm starting to wonder like what the next selling point is gonna become there's a third fold I want the phone that folds damnit that's just me I take a moment to appreciate the the little things and how we've got ridiculously powerful cameras in turn oh I so remember like our features like the the camera on the razor the original razor phone and like it it took like a was like a one megapixel photo or something like that it was like I looked buff as hell on those photos though yeah my complexion was a lot clearer because I look at all three pixels of yeah HD flaw exposure yeah a great question from MP Cody is the Mac issue only on High Sierra or it's at all previous versions it's only on High Sierra yep so at least a little solace in that since a lot of people have and the thing about High Sierra was that basically like hours before it had released a former NSA hacker who worked for a security company also showed another bug with their passwords like on the keychain that like you could extract all the passwords from it if you had an app jeez they patched that too but it was just one of those things like wow man passwords are not really safe on this right and just to refresh and elaborate for a couple people who have come in late the problem that we're experiencing now is if you have high sierra you can type in root as your username and no password and admin like yeah it's not even they don't even make a new account with like guest features or its litter when we checked it and then we logged back out to log back in as root it they changed the name to system administrator so it's it's literally system admins access and you have complete permissions on everything this is what happens when you rush stuff some poor soul is gonna lose his job because to go back at anything because they put this out to beta this is the same cycle that they have every year for a new operating system like it's just yeah so we are almost out of time and I need to learn more about the Avengers as a tried-and-true comic book fan I'm just pointing to myself for not seeing this yet so they're kind of like the Justice League I'm aware of that but guy with the shield is a guy with like some metal armor like metal man lumina man yeah so what was your takeaway from the trailer but just to kind of like bolster me and I I know that this is gonna be like a two-part like infinity war supposed to be two parts so I thought they'd backpedaled on that no no well it's infinity war I think it's gonna be its own like title or whatever but it's supposed to be like a two-part Avengers yeah so I'm not completely predicting like this whole movie they're just introducing Thanos and just getting their asses kicked like yeah yeah imagine things get like really really terrible who dies I to be continued who dies probably that's not the vision vision vision definitely died yeah nobody cares about vision yeah there is a produce yeah there's a pretty graphic but dramatic scene with the vision of Thanos Thanos mind stone for mine stone yes definitely dies like there's no way he doesn't die does it go back to being Jarvis is to get like demoted pattern there was I don't know if I want spoiler for bread but there was a scene with it's a trailer alright good then there's a see what the vision word he wasn't in his Android makeup he was like it is yeah but can't see like you use his powers to know what he looks like yeah he can totally use his powers to reject Marsha stone yeah yes I think that's Paul Bettany just showed up one morning is I don't want to make up six hours not end like I'm very it's Mikey rewrite the script which yeah oh not in a bit like that was romantic scene so do we have to do like another sex robot story at scene that or something like that possibly ooh yikes and then Captain America rocks a beard he probably mother that's awesome yeah keep it yeah I think they should all have beards I think Black Widow should get a beard to Hulk with the beard like in World War know with Planet Planet Hulk yeah I don't know if those are planning okey dokey definitely under beard uh and it also happened old man Logan I believe he had a beard maybe or no end of the earth I forget what story it was there's one where it's like Hulk is a sole survivor sounds like his kid yeah he keeps mutating yeah it's awesome I'm gonna read that no I will say look again but the Comic Con footage is show a lot more of the action we got to see the new spider-man suit just come yeah iron spider oh yeah iron spider suit it's kind of cool if you watch did you watch the spider-man movie the homecoming yes yeah so he does finally yes take his offer yep well becomes a full-blown Avenger all right there's some sort of weird ring like that appears in the middle yeah yeah it's like a giant portal and it like destroys it's not really clear if it's a portal or I guess yeah that's the Infinity Gauntlet for you doesn't he doesn't stand us like smash a moon or something like that so it's not in that trailer but I did see that that was in the Comic Con footage we that was as implausible that sounds like he smashes the moon into the planet implausible it's a movie about superheroes you know that can look really bad and fake oh yes some reason that works really well like I don't know why but it by like the way they shot it the way it was framed I'm like yeah okay I can see that yeah kind of like the moon landing yeah I just kind of want to see him do that indefinitely with planets and stars like the I crush your head it's way more realistic all right we are just about out of time I like the Josh boy de is predicting the Captain America is going today I think that's the most poetic way to get a bounce it's very much I feel like him Iron Man I mean the whole like though the legacy characters like the oh geez yeah I feel like there's there's a bunch of them are gonna go right Wow that's my prediction it's bold they're expensive they want to be they want talking about how after the Avengers movies not this one maybe the four think of adventures for but they've been talking about how like the trying to like changed this could big changes it's much more they wanted to be legacy they want to be able to recast and bring a new character move on much longer than we know do this stuff I don't want to see like Avengers like 20 or something but I think Robert Downey jr. is like stealth I think that the point right there gonna get rid of some of these yeah hundred characters and I can start fresh with you know Black Panther and spider-man sir yeah what do you think what do you think Stanley's cameo is gonna be maybe Avengers well he was already a watcher guys in the galaxy I say put him in like Slave Leia outfit oh look next to Thanos is throne yeah they can do that good Disney owns both of them exactly Oh what if they put in like that's terrible like kylo Ren how far away are we from giant franchise crossover because Disney owns world I kingdom heart movie with Star Wars and well you know Disney get together like Olsen Wolverine we can just get Wolverine in there that would just make my day there's still a chance it's always a chance always a chance we have a newbie in the chat his name's James McDonald welcome yeah we want he's asking if he can ask any questions about tech he's new do it yeah it's where we're out of time today but we are on every morning from 11:15 Eastern till about now yeah so hop on board our education squad some schedule changes sometimes we answer questions on Twitter too but don't count on it follow us on Twitter and go answer them but we won't all right that's the way you want and we do have to rap so hopefully James and everybody we'll see you tomorrow yeah definitely tomorrow all right if you liked anything you saw or heard here check us out on CNET our podcast is available on iTunes TuneIn stitcher SoundCloud Feedburner Google Play Music and you can call us up on an Amazon echo right Omar oh yeah take everybody